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Saturday, September 3, 2016

The European Commission issued a formal decision on August
30, 2016 that the state of Ireland “recoup roughly €13 billion ($14.5 billion)
of unpaid taxes accumulated over more than a decade by Apple, Inc.”[1]
The decision “shows companies could be on the hook for past behavior and
potentially be handed big bills for allegedly unpaid back taxes.”[2]
E.U. law “forbid companies from gaining advantages over competitors because of
government help.”[3]
This applies both the federal government and the state governments, so the law
could be better stated as, “No state government shall help companies gain
advantages over their competitors.” Presumably Ireland’s government made the
offer of help, rather than Apple getting that government to comply with the
company’s wishes. If so, the state government rather than the company should be
held responsible. Put another way, if Apple’s board and management considered
the Irish offer to be legitimate at the time, Apple should not be held to pay
the back taxes; rather, the state government should pay a penalty to the
Commission.

Thursday, September 1, 2016

On April 3, 2016, 2.6 terabytes of data—more than 11.5 million documents—leaked from Panama’s law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The documents show that the firm “helped heads of state, oligarchs and celebrities launder money, dodge sanctions and avoid taxes.”[1] Over 40 years, 214,000 offshore shell companies in 200 countries implicate individuals including the family of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and that of British Prime Minister David Cameron, several friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmunder Gunnlaugsson; financial institutions implicated include UBS, HSBC, and Société Générale.[2] I contend that the markets themselves had been tilted in the interest of the greater power (i.e., the rich), so systemic rather than incremental or piecemeal efforts would be necessary to solve the problem.

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Dwarfed by the arduous trade negotiations between the E.U. and U.S., the E.U. and Canada actually completed negotiations on a free-trade deal in February, 2016. Ratification had to be pushed back from the fall. The drag from the “deep suspicion over the benefits of unrestricted trade” that was increasing globally was ostensibly the reason.[1] I contend that the true obstacle was the amount of sovereignty that the E.U. states still retained in the Union. Americans can think back to the Articles of Confederation as having the same major drawback. In the E.U.’s case, however, the Union had evolved past being a confederation, given the governmental sovereignty already at the federal level. The veto-power of a state government was thus out of place, and thus an obstacle for the E.U. even in fulfilling its existing responsibilities at the federal level.

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”[1] This biblical verse captures the extraordinary optimism of Norman Vincent Peale. Belief, expectation, and faith—his pillars of the Christian religion—are internals that can move mountains and thus get results. This biblically-based recipe for positive thinking can be applied to leadership, which, after all, is results-oriented. Its desired objective is of course the realization of a vision. Simply put, if religion can be used to do better in a job as Peale insists,[2] this holds for the task of leading other people, which consists of formulating and selling a vision.

In my hometown, a local college decided to become a
university. Not that the institution was expanding; the draw was tuition money
from foreign students whose governments required that aid be given only to foreign
universities. So overnight, departments became colleges. The underlying
mentality, I submit, is that of forsaking what an institution is and so claiming
to be something it’s not in order to get more money. In short, the underlying
mentality is more, more, more, even
if this means being something an institution is not. The change comes off as
pretentious and greedy. The mentality is also in the mix when for-profit
colleges take advantage of the U.S. student-loan program to the extent that
they become financially dependent on the subsidized loans. Furthermore, some
for-profits turn non-profit as a way to avoid oversight without losing the
financial benefits of being for-profit. The trend points to an increasing
decadence in American higher-education. The good news is that between 2011 and
2016, the enrollments at the major non-profit schools dropped by more than
half; the “pullback came as the government clamped down on aggressive
recruiting practices and stricter policies intended to ensure that schools are
preparing students for gainful employment.”[1]
Even the assumption that the purpose of a college is to train students for jobs rather than educate to make students knowledgeable. I suspect that the latter
mission ironically makes for better hires among graduates.

Monday, August 29, 2016

California’s legislature approved a bill (SB 32) in August,
2016 that extends the climate targets from reducing greenhouse-gas emissions
from 1990 levels by 2020 (the former target) to just 40 percent of 1990 levels
by 2030.[1]
A second law, which includes increased legislative oversight of California
regulators and targets refineries in poor areas, passed as well. Diane Regas of
the Environmental Defense Fund pointed to California’s climate leadership. “As major
economies work under the Paris Agreement to strengthen their plans to cut
pollution and boost clean energy, California, once again, is setting a new
standard for climate leadership worldwide.”[2]
At first glance, it would seem that the legislature had freed itself from big
business to pass the bills, but the sector itself was split. I submit the anticipation
of a refreshed “cap and trade” program as an alternative (or mitigating factor)
to stricter regulations played a role. Simply put, using the market mechanism in
government regulation makes the stricter targets more palatable to market-based
enterprises.